The Languages We're Learning Now46:06

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No jobs at home? Looking abroad? We’ll look at the languages Americans are studying today. What’s hot, what’s not and where they lead.

In this Feb. 15, 2013 photograph, Myrtle Hall IV Elementary School teacher Gabrielle Wooden, left, and Camilyn Anderson, 7, lead their first grade class in a live action Spanish class in Clarksdale, Miss. Students attend a language immersion magnet school where Spanish is taught. (AP)

To put it mildly, Americans have never been the world’s greatest foreign language learners. Far from it. We’ve had a big country of English speakers and a native tongue that just kept spreading around the world. But the language map of this big, globalized planet is still a very diverse one. And intrepid Americans still keep diving in to learn. Japanese had its heyday. Russian. Arabic after 9/11. Now Chinese. And of course, Spanish all over this country. This hour On Point: Foreign language learning in the USA now. What’s hot, what’s not, and where it leads.-- Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Marty Abbott, executive director of the American Council on The Teaching of Foreign Languages.

Michael Geisler, vice president for language schools, schools abroad and graduate schools at Middlebury College. Professor in lingustics and languages and professor of German.

From Tom's Reading List

Forbes: America's Foreign Language Deficit --More and more students and their parents understand the need to communicate with friends and foes in other countries, and not just on our terms. Demand for and enrollment in foreign language courses is at its highest level since 1968. At public K-12 schools, course enrollment in 2007-2008 reached 8.9 million individuals, about 18.5 percent of all students; between 1995 and 2009, it increased 47.8 percent at colleges and universities.